I just read the following article, http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1528/, by Stoney deGeyter of Pole Position Marketing.
Stoney does a very nice job of laying out the way that most SEO projects are scoped and priced. The way he lays out rough estimates of the various components of an SEO project - keyword research, page optimization, usability conversion analysis, reporting, link building, and "miscellaneous management" - helps consumers of search engine optimization services understand that it isn't a "magic wand" approach. Or an approach that lends itself easily to one-size-fits-all pricing packages.
Just like any other consulting service, it takes time, from talented people, to understand a business, research appropriate search language, and provide a long-term plan for search visibility success. I would add a few other items to the list of typical tasks such as domain management, URL presentation, data feeds, consolidating acquired websites, and use of new SEO technologies, to name a few.
As someone who sells SEO services (in addition to providing them), I also want to help companies understand the value of an investment in an SEO project. As Stoney mentions, "that's no small chunk of change" when a company is considering using marketing dollars for a project that can sometimes take time to bear fruit.
If we are to take Stoney's example of an "average" SEO engagement of $3,000/month (and it can certainly be higher for a complex site facing stiff rankings competition), it makes common sense to ask "what will I get in return"?
I suppose success could be thought of in terms of the number of high keyword rankings, average daily search engine referrals, and search engine referrals as a percent of overall traffic. But budget and business owners want to know about the return on the investment. Every business has its own business model and economics, so it is important to think about things like a website's ability to convert visitors into sales and/or qaulity leads. When the right tracking tools are in place (web reporting packages, referral-based call monitoring, offline tracking of leads-to-sale, etc.), it becomes possible to analyze the impact of the improved search engine visibility on the business.
For that "average $36,000 per year", will there be sufficient profit-after-expense to justify the investment? For almost all large businesses, the answer is "yes, and then some". For most business-to-business companies, including mid-size companies, the answer is the same. So, if you will excuse this open plea, try not to think only about "how much am I paying these people per hour, or per month", but "how valuable is this to my bottom line?"
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